Nikon Small World competition winners | Human neurons to embryonic gecko hands

The Nikon Small World competition brings microscopic photography into focus. These images celebrate the unbelievable clarity of photographs taken through a light microscope.

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Above: Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko by Grigorii Timin & Dr Michel Milinkovitch Lamproderma (slime mould) by Alison Pollack A fly under the chin of a tiger beetle by Murat Öztürk Breast tissue showing contractile myoepithelial cells wrapped around milk-producing alveoli by Dr Caleb Dawson Blood vessel networks in the intestine of an adult mouse by Satu Paavonsalo & Dr Sinem Karaman A long-bodied daddy long legs spider by Dr Andrew Posselt Unburned particles of carbon released when the hydrocarbon chain of candle wax breaks down by Ole Bielfeld Human neurons derived from neural stem cells by Dr Jianqun Gao & Prof Glenda Halliday The growing tip of red algae by Dr Nathanaël Prunet A liquid crystal mixture by Marek Sutkowski Moth eggs by Ye Fei Zhang A fluorescent single coral polyp by Brett M. Lewis Agatised dinosaur bone by Randy Fullbright Differentiated cultured mouse myoblasts with lysosomes by Nadia Efimova Cross sections of normal human colon epithelial crypts by Dr Ziad El-Zaatari A longitudinal section through a white asparagus shoot tip by Dr Olivier Leroux A tail fin of a zebrafish larva with peripheral nerves and extracellular matrix by Dr Daniel Wehner & Julia Kolb A network of white blood cells of an adult zebrafish by Dr Julien Resseguier A bacterial biofilm on a human tongue cell by Dr Tagide deCarvalho Human heart cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells by Hui Lin & Dr Kim McBride